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Turn Your Garage into an Open-Air Game Room

Just because the winter is almost upon us and temperatures are dropping across the country, that doesn’t mean you can’t be dreaming about the dog days of summer and enjoying the warmer weather. In fact, now is probably the perfect time to start brainstorming an open-air game room, giving you months to get materials and decorations together so that once winter wraps up, you can start enjoying it immediately.

Many properties feature an underutilized garage that is an ideal spot to transform into an all-seasons game room. Because these spaces aren’t connected to the main house, when players get too loud it won’t affect people inside the house who are looking to get a little peace and quiet. As well, especially if you choose to transform your garage into a gaming area, there is usually ample space to fit a sizable shuffleboard table.

Best of all, when the weather gets warm again, you can pull up the garage door and let the sun shine on in, playing your favorite arcade games or battling friends on the table while still getting fresh air.

If your garage, like most older ones, has exposed beams and structural supports, incorporate these into the look of the space and don’t cover them up. Paint the interior an entire solid color instead of installing a ceiling or wall panels. The room will look larger if the beams stay exposed all the way to the ceiling, and you can hang lights and decorations from the larger ones. As well, the authentic look is cheaper and more interesting than going the safe route and having a dropped ceiling installed.

You can put relatively cheap rubber or foam flooring panels on the ground to cover the concrete. These will provide comfort under foot and also endure the elements better than flooring made for indoors.

You don’t have to get fancy in turning the whole garage around to make it a game room, as the raw structural look itself carries an authentic aesthetic. Put a rustic Dakota shuffleboard table in your game room and the look is complete.